Smoking in the Dark
by flyingcrowbar
Summary: Years after the battle against Gaea and her forces, Leo likes to unwind with a good smoke in the privacy of his cabin. Nico stops by to pay a visit and the pair share a moment of peace.


Leo flicked the cigarette up and down in his lips, like he was waving a magic wand at the workshop laying in disarray before him. He had stayed up all night, practically hunched over his sketches at a perfect right angle, to finish the latest designs for the forges at camp, since they had been destroyed in battle because of Octavian and his little raiding party. It was only now that he was finally getting to it.

So there he sat on the steps to his dark, stuffy cabin, elbows on his knees, his back sore from stress, and circles under his eyes. He flipped his thumb, as if he were flashing one of his buddies the "all good" sign, and a flame ignited at the tip of his nail. He snuffed it out, only to do it again, like he was flipping a zippo lighter - yet another habit he had picked up. It was the only way he could think.

Cigarettes were one of the few vices he could afford himself. Being a demigod and all offered little in ways of comfort like a good smoke could. It was worth stained fingers and a puff of cloud from his lungs for a break from all the chaos.

"That stuff's terrible for you, you know," a cool voice said from behind.

Nico had a way of emerging from the shadows like Batman. Since the battle with Gaea, though, it had become something of an expectation to find Nico lurking over one's shoulder. Leo didn't even flinch anymore, but why he came here was more of a mystery.

"Hey," Leo greeted, the comment successfully ignored.

Nico, much older now than when they first met all those years ago, ran a hand through his undercut hairstyle and looked at the masterpiece before them (though to the untrained eye, it was just the opposite). By any gauge, Leo could assume he himself looked older too. Hades, he _was_ older - who was he kidding? They all were, by no stretch of the imagination.

"Late night?" Nico asked.

"How can you tell?"

"Eh, there are signs. Any progress?"

"Some. Gotta make everyone happy."

"Mmm…"

Leo finally lit his cigarette with his thumb and took in a few puffs. _Ah, relief._ He closed his eyes and let the neurons in his mind sigh with relaxation. This was the only time his ADHD brain wasn't on overdrive.

He lifted the pack out of his back pocket and presented it in front of Nico as a peace offering.

"Nah," Nico said, waving his hand as if they weren't the droids Leo was looking for. "I'm trying to quit."

_I learn something new every day!_ He plucked the cigarette from his lips. "You smoke?"

"Used to be two packs a day."

"Wow. That's a ton."

"It doesn't make much of a difference when I know where I'm going to end up anyway."

_Point made._ "What made you want to stop?" he asked.

If there was one thing Leo knew about Nico was that Nico was a man of few words. He didn't expect much out of him, but it was enough to even get him to talk. "I just wanted to. Figured it was time for a change."

"You're stronger than me," Leo said, and took another long hit. He let the smoke out in a cool line up toward the ceiling.

"Trust me, you're tempting me just standing here."

"Then sit," Leo said.

After a moment's hesitation, and to Leo's surprise, Nico did. Leo tapped and flipped the pack in between his thumb and middle finger and an open palm, while gracefully balancing his cigarette in the corner of his mouth. They didn't have much to talk about, because as Leo already surmised, Nico didn't much like conversation. But the company was welcome.

His gaze shifted over the pile of gears and cogs in the corner of the cabin, organized in only a way Leo would be able to decipher. A roll of half-assed ideas sketched on parchment strewn across a table here, a pile of greasy rags on another there, a smoldering glow of incandescent bulbs hanging everywhere else. He really should get to work on fixing the TV, the WiFi, and the X-Box before the other campers threw a hissy fit. He had already dawdled long enough.

And he would have gotten up too if he hadn't noticed Nico staring at the cigarette pack in his hands like it were a stuck pig with an apple in its mouth. Man, the guy could have been practically drooling and it wouldn't have been any different.

Leo paused in his fidgeting, flipped the pack open and offered it. He was an enabler, there was no denying it. Nico winced as if it physically hurt him to look at it.

"One last hurrah. For old time's sake," Leo egged with a wry grin.

Nico groaned. The way he looked at Leo, like Leo was up to no good (which he wasn't) and how persuasive he really could be (which he was), made Leo only smile wider. Nico took the pack from him, slapped a stick into his palm, and twisted it into his fingers like a pro. Leo provided the light and Nico did all the rest.

He took in a breath, like he was savoring every second, edged the cigarette out, and then parted his lips, making the smoke billow and curl upward to his pointed nose like ghostly fingers searching for something to cling onto.

Objectively speaking, Leo could admit that Nico smoked like the bad boy supreme Leo pretended to be. He made it look hot.

Nico sighed, letting the rest of the smoke dissipate into the cloud they had already created.

Leo laughed. He let his out through his nostrils, like a dragon. "The smoke is going to miss you."

"Me and it both," he replied, but he smiled too.

And together they sat for a few minutes more, not uncomfortable with the silence because all that mattered was that they could share a few seconds of peace.


End file.
